The Caney Fork Wonder: a Tennessee "wild man" put on show in Louisville (1878)

Tennessee, 1878. The Cumberland Mountains, near Caney Fork, where the river marks the line between White and Van Buren counties. Wild man stories ran through American newspapers all century. This one came with a captor, a theatre and a tour.

Dr. O. G. Broyler claimed to have watched "the creature's actions for the past twelve years." About the 15th of September, Broyler "started into the mountains fully determined to succeed in the capture."

A lasso failed. A net worked. By one later reading of the Nashville account, the captive fought "after the fashion of a bear" before he was subdued. Then came the morning and the wagon. "The strange creature acted in the most mysterious manner, refusing obstinately for some time to get into the wagon."

Late October 1878. The man was brought to Louisville. In a room at the Metropolitan Theater, physicians and invited guests could view him from 1 to 4 p.m. The description spread to Cincinnati, Nashville, Knoxville and Columbus. His height "when standing perfectly erect is about 6 ft 5 in." A heavy growth of hair. A dark reddish beard about six inches long. Eyes "at least twice the size of the average sized eye." Toes formed together. And a body covered with "a layer of scales, which drop off at regular periods, in the spring and fall, like the skin of a rattlesnake."

He had to be kept wet, the report said, or he grew feverish and uneasy. He ate fish raw. Alone, he was said to mutter an unintelligible jargon. Before visitors he stayed silent. His muscles twitched. His eyes kept turning to the door he had come in by.

Manager Whallen, a third-owner "in this remarkable being," announced a national tour. Broyler added one more detail. "The parents of the wild man are respectable citizens of North Carolina named Croslin."

Dr. Cary Blackburn said the condition "could not be attributed to any skin disease." In that view, "undoubtedly he was born in that condition." Dr. Brady also attended.

Another Louisville physician saw it differently. Writing as "The Man-Fish of Tennessee" in the Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal in December 1878, the author had suspected ichthyosis before arriving. "A single glance was sufficient to verify the correctness of his conjecture." The skin was "dry and harsh, and never perspires." It was "a most magnificent example of the form of icthyosis, or fish-skin disease, called icthyosis serpentina, or serpent-skin." As for the backstory, "much of this story was only showman's talk, uttered to attract the attention of the curious and credulous public."

Cracks run through the tale. A November 1878 item called the wild man a "bankrupt shoemaker" being readied for show business. Researchers later found an Onslow G. Broyles in White County records, listed as a dentist by 1880. One modern reading of the medical article describes the man as about 50, married, with several children. That sits badly with eighteen years alone in the woods. Some credit the article to Dr. L. P. Yandell Jr., though no author is printed.

The story survived in reprints, local history columns and blogs. One 2009 blog filed it as a Bigfoot case. Others remember the Caney Fork Wonder as a sideshow curiosity. What remains is plainer, and sadder. A tall man with a severe skin disease was netted, loaded into a wagon and displayed as a monster. The doctors who came to look named his illness. None of the surviving reports gives his own name.